Oscar Wilde’s London: A World of Wit, Flamboyance, and Scandal

Though he was born in Dublin and died in fin de siècle Paris, Oscar Wilde chose London as his artistic platform and playground. In honour of his October birthday, we trace the poet and playwright’s flamboyant footsteps through the capital city he knew and loved.

The streets of late 19th century London were alive with diversity, art and conversation. The West End teemed with elegant carriages and fashionable crowds, and Hyde Park-the city’s ‘green lung’-was a stage for public discourse. A time and place where the aesthetic and the hedonistic furtively met, Oscar Wilde’s London was a merry-go-round of salons, supper clubs, and soirees.
Sauntering through Mayfair and St. James’s draped in colourful fabrics, audacious hats, and queer-coded green carnations, Wilde’s wardrobe was itself both statement and spectacle. He delighted audiences with his mischievous polemics, covering themes such as architecture, literature, fashion, and How to be an artist in an age lacking in beauty-a lecture he delivered to students at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Society’s Stage
Penning the line ‘A man who can dominate a London dinner-­table can dominate the world’ in his 1893 play A Woman of No Importance, Wilde’s literary output reflected the social scene he observed first-hand. A dandy with devastating wit, the playwright often held court at the hip Café Royal on Regent Street, where he’d lunch and linger in the Café Royal Grill with fellow well-heeled artists and intellectuals.

In his Chelsea townhouse-34 Tite Street, where he and wife Constance Lloyd entertained guests among peacock-feathered furnishings-he wrote the gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and the drawing room play An Ideal Husband (1895). Wilde’s canon, with its enduring humour and powerful social commentary, continues to resonate today. The Importance of Being Earnest, 130 years after its debut at St James’s Theatre, has returned to the West End starring Olly Alexander and Stephen Fry.

The play’s original opening night,Valentine’s Day 1895, was a resounding success and marked the height of Wilde’s career. Yet, within weeks, Victorian London would collectively swoon as the bard’s infamous court case unfolded at the Old Bailey following a public feud. Set in motion by the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde’s secret lover Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas, it remains one of the most talked-about trials in British history.

During the hearing, Wilde quoted Bosie’s 1894 poem ‘Two Loves’, turning the line ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ into an indictment of a hypocritical and too-rigid society. Despite being met with thunderous applause from the public gallery, this perceived admission of guilt, along with love letters left in pockets taken as evidence, saw him sentenced to two years’ hard labour. On his release from Reading Gaol, Wilde was exiled to France. London became a city he left, but one which remains forever in his thrall.

“It takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it”
London today embodies Oscar Wilde’s penchant for paradox, rule-breaking, and boundless pursuit of beauty. His presence is felt at the theatres where his plays were joyously received, the drinking dens he frequented for his signature absinthe, and in his portraits looking out with defiant sparkle as guests sip coffee in The Gallery at Hotel Café Royal.